Upgrading ESX/ESXi hosts and virtual machines is the most time-consuming aspect of this middle phase of a Horizon View upgrade.

This procedure provides an overview of the tasks you must perform during the second and subsequent maintenance windows. To complete some of these tasks, you might need step-by-step instructions found in the VMware vSphere Upgrade Guide and the VMware Horizon View Administrator's Guide.

To use the space-efficient disk format feature for linked-clone pools, you must upgrade vCenter Server, ESXi hosts, virtual machines, and the VMware Tools software in the virtual machines to VMware vSphere 5.1 or later.

For instructions, see the VMware vSphere Upgrade Guide. If you have many clusters, this step could take several maintenance windows to complete. Upgrading ESX/ESXi hosts might include the following tasks:

a

Use VMotion to move the virtual machines off of the ESX/ESXi host.

b

Put the host into maintenance mode.

c

Perform the upgrade.

d

Use VMotion to move the virtual machines back onto the host.

e

Perform post-upgrade tasks for ESXi hosts.

Every host must be a member of a cluster, as mentioned in the prerequisites.

2

If an upgraded host does not reconnect itself to vCenter Server, use vSphere Client to reconnect the host to vCenter Server.

3

If you use View Composer, after all ESX/ESXi hosts are upgraded, on the vCenter Server host, restart the View Composer service.

Update VMware Tools, and upgrade the virtual machine hardware for virtual machines that will be used as sources for View desktops.

To use the Windows 7 3D rendering feature, available with View 5.0 and later, you must upgrade the virtual machine hardware to version 8 or later.

To use the space-efficient disk format feature, available with Horizon View 5.2 and later, you must upgrade the virtual machine hardware to version 9 or later. This feature pertains to linked-clone pools.

If you use vSphere Update Manager, you can update VMware Tools and then the virtual hardware version in the correct order for all the virtual machines in a particular folder. See the VMware vSphere Upgrade Guide.

5

(Optional) If you use full-clone desktops, on each virtual machine, upgrade VMware Tools and the virtual hardware for virtual machines that will be used as sources for View desktops.

To use the Windows 7 3D rendering feature, available with View 5.0 and later releases, you must upgrade the virtual machine hardware to version 8 or later.

If you use vSphere Update Manager, you can update VMware Tools and then the virtual hardware version in the correct order for all the virtual machines in a particular folder. See the VMware vSphere Upgrade Guide.